“What do you call that behind you?—a horse?” I asked, as a yellow-and-white mutt, almost as ill conditioned as the woman, jumped down from the bed in the alcove and stood at her heels.
“Git out from here,” she railed at the dog as she aimed a kick at it with a foot incased in an unlaced run-down shoe, without a stocking. “’Tain’t mine. I wouldn’t tell you no lie. I’m too much of a lady to lie about a dog. It belongs to my son; he brought the mutt home from camp before they sent ’im away. I’m just keeping it for ’im.”
“Is your son in France?” I asked, for at that time having a soldier in the family was the touch that made the whole world kin.
She shook her head. “They’ve sent ’im to another trainin’-camp down South.” Then recognizing the note of sympathy in my voice, she threw open the door and invited me in.
It was the dirtiest flat in a decently kept tenement-house that I had ever entered. There was plenty of substantial furniture—chairs, a round oak dining-table, a good deal table, and an abundance of cooking utensils and crockery. Dirt! The floor was strewn with newspapers, crusts of bread, potato-peel, dirt, and more dirt.
“Seems like they oughtn’t to make me pay license for my son’s dog an’ him a soldier?”
“That’s a nice dining-table,” I parried, for in spite of her dirt if her son was her sole support I was willing to give her time to take out a dog license.
Being Irish, at the mention of her table she began to boast. That was not to be compared to the one in her front room. The furniture in her front room was something grand. All the furniture in her flat was of the best, she never having been a believer in “cheap John stuff.” She’d like to show me her front room if it wasn’t that Dan’l, her husband, was such a one for throwing things around.
On my asking if her soldier son were her only child, I learned that she had one other living, a boy of twelve. Her husband “worked for the city,” got thirty dollars a week. But what was that to support a family on. Seemed like a rich city like New York oughter be able to pay better wages. Also it seemed like the government oughter pay more to the family of soldiers, to make up for taking them away. Her son, besides making good money as a plumber, was “in politics” for weeks before and during elections; he more than doubled his wages by working evenings.
As I was taking my leave she had the grace to apologize for her “things bein’ strewed around.” She used to take pleasure in her flat, she assured me, but now that the house had run down so there was no use wearing herself out trying to keep things up.